Industrial production and capacity utilization: the 2003 annual revision

In late 2003, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve issued revisions to its measures of industrial, capacity, and capacity utilization for the period from January 1972 to September 2003. The changes are generally small and principally affect data from 2000 to the present. ; Measured from fourth quarter to fourth quarter, industrial output is now reported to have increased at a slower rate in 2000 and to have contracted a bit more slowly in 2001 than reported earlier. The changes to total industrial production in other years are slight. The revision still places the most recent peak in total IP in June 2000 and the corresponding trough in December 2001. The 6-1/4 percent peak-to-trough decline in output is about 1/2 percentage point less than the previous estimate. After the trough, the total index showed gains in the first half of 2002, only to trend down again until mid-2003 and then to head up. ; The revised measures of overall capacity are only minimally different from earlier estimates. Capacity expanded rapidly during the second half of the 1990s and slowed considerably since then. The rate of industrial capacity utilization (the ratio of production to capacity) remained at a low level in the third quarter of 2003--the last full quarter of data--and was unchanged by the revision. At 74.6 percent, the operating rate is 4 percentage points below the trough of the 1990-91 recession and 6.7 percentage points below its 1972-2002 average.Industrial production index ; Industrial capacity

Industrial production and capacity utilization: the 2001 annual revision

In late 2001, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System published the annual revision of its index of industrial production and the related measures of capacity and capacity utilization for the period January 1992 to October 2001. The updated measures reflect the incorporation of newly available, more-comprehensive source data and the introduction of improved methods for compiling a few series. ; Measured fourth quarter to fourth quarter, increases in rates of industrial output and capacity have been revised downward from rates previously reported for 1999 and 2000. The revision places the decline in industrial output in 2001 at an annual rate of 6.0 percent. The estimated rate of increase in capacity in 2001 was lowered by 0.7 percentage point, to 1.7 percent. The rate of industrial capacity utilization as of the third quarter of 2001 was little changed by the revision; at 74.6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2001, the rate is 4 percentage points below the nadir of the 1990-91 recession but 3 percentage points above that of the 1982 recession.Industrial production index ; Industrial capacity

Industrial production and capacity utilization: recent developments and the 1999 annual revision

In late 1999, the Federal Reserve published revised measures of industrial production, capacity, and capacity utilization for the period January 1992 through October 1999. The updated measures reflect both the incorporation of newly available, more comprehensive source data typical of annual revisions and the introduction of improved methods for compiling a few series, including computer and office equipment and motor vehicles. The new source data are for recent years, primarily from 1997 on, and the modified methods affect data beginning in 1992. ; The production index for the third quarter of 1999 is at 137.7 percent of output in 1992, compared with 135.2 percent reported before the annual revision, and the capacity index is 170.7 percent of output in 1992, compared with 167.9 percent reported previously. As a result, the rate of industrial capacity utilization was revised up 0.1 percentage point, to 80.7 percent for the third quarter of 1999.Industrial production index ; Industrial capacity

Technology, Capital Spending, and Capacity Utilization

Capacity utilization has been a valuable indicator of inflationary pressure. Yet recent technological changes have made relationships between inputs and outputs more flexible, possibly eroding the predictive value of the utilization rate. This paper shows that, conceptually, technological change could either lower average utilization by making it cheaper to hold excess capacity, or raise utilization by making further changes in capacity less costly. Using data on 111 manufacturing industries from 1974 to 2000, we find that, for the average industry, technological change has had a modest but appreciable effect, shaving 0.2 to 2.3 percentage points off the utilization rate.

Identifying ILI Cases from Chief Complaints: Comparing the Accuracy of Keyword and Support Vector Machine Methods

We compared the accuracy of two methods of identifying ILI cases from chief complaints. We found that a support vector machine method was more accurate than a keyword method

An Electrochemical Analysis of Fretting Corrosion in Metal-on-Metal Hip Implants Subjected to High Impaction Loads

The metal-on-metal total hip arthroplasty, a procedure where the hip joint is replaced by a femoral prosthesis with a metal femoral head and a metal socket, has been a popular option for patients requiring a hip joint replacement. Metal on metal hip implants have been a successful implant design until recently where there has been an increased number of failures of this type of implant due to fretting corrosion, believed to be caused from the use of large femoral heads. Fretting corrosion in hip implants results from cyclic micromotion at the taper-trunnion interface; this interface motion removes the protective oxidation layer from the metal allowing the fluid environment of the body to react with the metal and ultimately leads to the release of metal ions into the surrounding tissue and bloodstream. The objective of this research is to quantify the amount of fretting corrosion at the taper-trunnion interface after a static load of 991 lbs is applied, and compare results to a previous study where 450 lbs impaction force was applied. For both studies all specimens are cyclically loaded between 10 lbs and 460 lbs while fretting corrosion data is collected. Fretting corrosion was characterized through the implementation of an electrochemical experiment in order to measure the amount of metal ions released from the implant during loading, which is directly correlated to the amount of fretting corrosion. Results of this study will elucidate the importance of impaction load in the process of fretting corrosion at the metal taper-trunnion interface

An Emperor Penguin population estimate: The first global, synoptic survey of a species from space

Our aim was to estimate the population of emperor penguins (Aptenodytes fosteri) using a single synoptic survey. We examined the whole continental coastline of Antarctica using a combination of medium resolution and Very High Resolution (VHR) satellite imagery to identify emperor penguin colony locations. Where colonies were identified, VHR imagery was obtained in the 2009 breeding season. The remotely-sensed images were then analysed using a supervised classification method to separate penguins from snow, shadow and guano. Actual counts of penguins from eleven ground truthing sites were used to convert these classified areas into numbers of penguins using a robust regression algorithm. We found four new colonies and confirmed the location of three previously suspected sites giving a total number of emperor penguin breeding colonies of 46. We estimated the breeding population of emperor penguins at each colony during 2009 and provide a population estimate of ~238,000 breeding pairs (compared with the last previously published count of 135,000–175,000 pairs). Based on published values of the relationship between breeders and non-breeders, this translates to a total population of ~595,000 adult birds. There is a growing consensus in the literature that global and regional emperor penguin populations will be affected by changing climate, a driver thought to be critical to their future survival. However, a complete understanding is severely limited by the lack of detailed knowledge about much of their ecology, and importantly a poor understanding of their total breeding population. To address the second of these issues, our work now provides a comprehensive estimate of the total breeding population that can be used in future population models and will provide a baseline for long-term research

Superconductivity and the high field ordered phase in the heavy fermion compound PrOs4_4Sb12_{12}

Superconductivity is observed in the filled skutterudite compound \PrOsSb{} below a critical temperature temperature $T_\mathrm{c} = 1.85$ K and appears to develop out of a nonmagnetic heavy Fermi liquid with an effective mass $m^{*} \approx 50 m_\mathrm{e}$, where $m_\mathrm{e}$ is the free electron mass. Features associated with a cubic crystalline electric field are present in magnetic susceptibility, specific heat, electrical resistivity, and inelastic neutron scattering measurements, yielding a Pr$^{3+}$ energy level scheme consisting of a $\Gamma_{3}$ nonmagnetic doublet ground state, a low lying $\Gamma_{5}$ triplet excitied state at $\sim 10$ K, and much higher temperature $\Gamma_{4}$ triplet and $\Gamma_{1}$ singlet excited states. Measurements also indicate that the superconducting state is unconventional and consists of two distinct superconducting phases. At high fields and low temperatures, an ordered phase of magnetic or quadrupolar origin is observed, suggesting that the superconductivity may occur in the vicinity of a magnetic or quadrupolar quantum critical point.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, presented at the 3rd international symposium on Advance Science Research (ASR 2002), JAERI Tokai, Ibaraki, Japa

Revue d'histoire du Bas-Saint-Laurent, vol. 12 (3-4)

Mot de l'éditeur -- Au micro de CJBR -- La grande histoire de CJBR -- Jules-A. Brillant et le poste CJBR -- Avec CJBR, un bon en avant pour le Bas St-Laurent -- CJBR, l'école -- L'annonceur: un éducateur populaire -- Sandy Burgess : le journaliste que j'ai connu -- "Ce pays qui est le mien" -- Un demi-siècle d'information: que de nouvelles! -- Journaliste de père en fils à CJBR -- Le théâtre à CJBR -- 50 ans de musique à CJBR, le château fort de la mélodie française -- Poésie, théâtre, jazz et originalité avec Michel Garneau -- Les "Chroniques du dimanche", l'âge d'or de la critique culturelle à CJBR -- "Si CJBR m'était conté..." -- L'évolution technologique, un élément-clef de l'histoire des 50 ans de radiodiffusion -- La publicité à CJBR, quarante ans de croissance -- Des pionnières à CJBR -- 1958-1972, des années enrichissantes -- De Trois-Pistoles à Rimouski -- Le sport et son enracinement dans le milieu régional -- "Debout c'est l'heure", c'est Jean Brisson qui sonne le réveil -- "Par une belle journée de tempête" -- Et on repart vers la centain

First-line ovulation induction for polycystic ovary syndrome : an individual participant data meta-analysis

Acknowledgements We would like to thank Mr M. Draper from Barr Smith Library, University of Adelaide, for his assistance in developing the search strategies and Dr M. H. Zafarmand from University of Amsterdam for assisting with the translation. We would like to acknowledge all the investigators and participants of the primary trials. The investigators of individual trials are listed in Supplementary Table SIV. We would like to acknowledge the assistance of NICHD, the Reproductive Medicine Network (RMN) and the Protocol Subcommittee, in making the database for PPCOS I and II available. +The authors of the Reproductive Medicine Network are R.S.L., R.G. Brzyski, M.P. Diamond, C. Coutifaris, W.D. Schlaff, P. Casson, G.M. Christman, H. Huang, Q. Yan, R. Alvero, D.J. Haisenleder, K.T. Barnhart, G.W. Bates, R. Usadi, S. Lucidi, V. Baker, J.C. Trussell, S.A. Krawetz, P. Snyder, D. Ohl, N. Santoro, H.X. Barnhart, B.R. Carr, S.A. Carson, M.P. Steinkampf, P.G. McGovern, N.A. Cataldo, G.G. Gosman, J.E. Nestler, L.C. Giudice, P.C. Leppert, E.R. Myers, E. Eisenberg and H. Zhang. The details of their affiliations and NIH Grants are listed in Supplementary Table SV. Funding An Australian government research training programme scholarship (to R.W.); Australian National Health and Medical Research Council-funded Centre for Research Excellence in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (APP1078444). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.Peer reviewedPostprin